Bo Jackson on Shaggin’ Flies

I used to entertain my teammates by catching flies with my bare hands – not fly balls, flies. If we saw a fly in the cafeteria, I’d reach out and grab it and take it outside and let it go. Once we were having a cookout and I spotted a whole bunch of flies on a wall, eight or ten of them, all of them within a foot of each other. I turned to our left fielder, Trey Gainous, and said, “I bet I could catch six of them at one time.”

“No way,” he said.

I walked up to the wall and went swack! and with my fist clenched, said to Trey, “You think I got’em?”

“Hell no,” he said.

I opend one finger, my little finger, and one fly flew out. I opened the next finger, and two more flies flew out. I opened the middle finger. Two more. That made five. One more finger to open.

I looked at Trey, and he shook his head. I opened the final finger, and the fly just sat there, the sixth fly.

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